NetApp (
NTAP
) creates innovative storage and data management solutions for
small and medium-sized companies around the world. It competes
mainly with EMC (
EMC
), IBM (
IBM
), HP (
HPQ
) and Dell (
DELL
) in the external disk storage systems market.
Netapp has created a strong brand for itself over the
years, winning numerous awards and building a large list of loyal
customers. A recent survey by
Storage
magazine ranked NetApp first in enterprise array quality. And the
company's RTP data center was the first to earn the U.S.
government's Energy Star rating for superior energy efficiency.
Based on the company's rising share of the external storage
market and its promising partnerships with Microsoft, Cisco and
others, we have raised
the Trefis stock price estimate for NetApp from
$33.54 to $41.56.
Our analysis follows below.
Growing market share
NetApp's share of the external storage market has grown steadily
in recent years.
NetApp is currently the third-largest external
storage player after IBM and Dell
, according to market research firm IDC. We expect its share to
rise further during the Trefis forecast period, from around 11% in
2010 to nearly 13% by 2016.
You can drag the trend-line in the chart below to create your
own storage market share forecast for Netapp and see how it impacts
the company's estimated stock price.
Productive partnerships
NetApp partners with VMware (
VMW
) and Cisco (
CSCO
) to provide integrated data center solutions. Netapp's FCoE
solutions, Cisco's data center switches and VMware's virtualization
technology combine to help corporate data centers work more
efficiently.
NetApp has also embarked on a cloud computing partnership
with Microsoft (
MSFT
). Cloud computing is a form of IT hosting in which resources such
as servers are pooled for the simultaneous use of many customers.
Numerous enterprises worldwide have been moving their IT
infrastructures onto the cloud, which is often cheaper and more
efficient than running a proprietary data data center.
In
the earnings report for the first quarter of its
2011 fiscal year
, NetApp announced that it was working with Microsoft and other
companies to help enterprise clients make the jump to cloud
computing. The Microsoft partnership involves integrating various
NetApp and Microsoft applications in an effort to help business
customers navigate virtualized IT environments.
You can see
the complete $41.56 Trefis price estimate for
Netapp's stock here
.